Question Alder Lake - Official Thread

[Hulk]

With the release of Alder Lake less than a week away and the "Lakes" thread having turned into a nightmare to navigate I thought it might be a good time to start a discussion thread solely for Alder Lake.

 

[Heartbreaker]

I'm betting AMD will reach out to game developers to add special support for their new iGPUs, making them attractive to the average gamer. Otherwise, it makes no sense for them to advertise that as a feature on their iGPUs, as they may not even be able to do raytracing in normal games at 720p. What we will see is maybe casual games or even point and click 3D adventure games with raytracing and AMD's logo at the start of the game.

Extremely unlikely. You can barely do RT on the RX 6600, let alone the 6500XT, where it's a absolute joke, but it's still advertised as a feature (checkbox marketing).

An iGPU won't be able to do anything at all with RT. No amount of "special support" will change that.

The RT units will be there, because GPUs are made by cutting and pasting common blocks. It would cost more money to engineer new blocks to leave that capability out. NVidia did that back in the Turing Era for the 16xx series cards, but going forward it's unlikely the will bother anymore. For the low end RT HW will be included and it hit RT marketing checkbox regardless of how unusable it is.

 

[igor_kavinski]

PS5 and Xbox Series X still have that comparatively pathetic (compared to nVidia) RT capability and game developers have found ways to incorporate it in their next gen titles without abysmal frame rates. Something similar can be expected on the PC, but in indie games and casual games.

 

[Heartbreaker]

PS5 and Xbox Series X still have that comparatively pathetic (compared to nVidia) RT capability and game developers have found ways to incorporate it in their next gen titles without abysmal frame rates. Something similar can be expected on the PC, but in indie games and casual games.

That's incorrect. PS5 and XBSX are > 6600XT fairly close to a 6700XT. Easily above the baseline that PC developers were already using for RT support (RTX 2060).

iGPU OTOH is a tiny fraction of that baseline support. There is pretty much nothing that can be done to make RT viable on an iGPU.

 

[hemedans]

Alder Lake-H is the exact same die as Alder Lake-P, both are 6+8 w/ 96eu iGPU.

Seems you are right.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Xbox Series S with less than half the raytracing capability of 6600 XT is doing it: https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/9/21556197/xbox-series-s-ray-tracing-watch-dogs-legion

I think we shouldn't discount the ingenuity of game developers.

 

[dullard]

There is pretty much nothing that can be done to make RT viable on an iGPU.

Autofocus on a laptop camera, adding motion blur, simple 3D rendering (such as 3D printing software), shopping for a couch by putting it in your living room virtually, etc. Clearly nothing.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Autofocus on a laptop camera, adding motion blur, simple 3D rendering (such as 3D printing software), shopping for a couch by putting it in your living room virtually, etc. Clearly nothing.

I didn't think I needed to specify for gaming when we were talking about gaming.

 

[insertcarehere]

Xbox Series S with less than half the raytracing capability of 6600 XT is doing it: https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/9/21556197/xbox-series-s-ray-tracing-watch-dogs-legion

I think we shouldn't discount the ingenuity of game developers.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...tch-dogs-legion-ps5-vs-xbox-series-x-series-s

The Series S, with significantly more compute, way more available bandwidth and most importantly a unified, consistent platform where developers could optimize the game for platform in a way that's not possible for PC, was targeting "dynamic 1080p" (I. E 900-1080p) @30fps with Ray-tracing, on what is effectively a last-gen port.

Usable RT with iGPUs is going to remain a pipe dream for quite some time..

 

[igor_kavinski]

Usable RT with iGPUs is going to remain a pipe dream for quite some time..

Give it 5 years

 

[dullard]

I didn't think I needed to specify for gaming when we were talking about gaming.

Sorry, I didn't realize that this quote was about gaming "The RT units will be there, because GPUs are made by cutting and pasting common blocks. It would cost more money to engineer new blocks to leave that capability out."

 

[Hitman928]

Sorry, I didn't realize that this quote was about gaming "The RT units will be there, because GPUs are made by cutting and pasting common blocks. It would cost more money to engineer new blocks to leave that capability out."

I honestly don't see how RT units will be used for most of the things you mentioned anyway. They don't do auto focus functions or motion blur. The AR work of putting a couch in your living room is superpositioning and I doubt will use RT units as there isn't really a rendering pipeline involved AFAIK. Simple 3d rendering might apply but it will depend on the software used if it can even take advantage of the RT units and offline rendering doesn't get the same advantage from them as games because it's offline and doesn't have the same real time rendering demand games do. It could still speed things up, but with how little RT units an iGPU will have, I don't know how beneficial it would really be even if supported.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Sorry, I didn't realize that this quote was about gaming "The RT units will be there, because GPUs are made by cutting and pasting common blocks. It would cost more money to engineer new blocks to leave that capability out."

Perhaps read the post I was quoting when I wrote that. It's called context. Igor was specifically talking about getting developers to do special support of iGPU RT units "making them attractive to the average gamer".

I am clearly countering that iGPU RT gaming is not going to be viable.

 

[dullard]

I honestly don't see how RT units will be used for most of the things you mentioned anyway. They don't do auto focus functions or motion blur.

Using ray tracing for auto focus:

Ray tracing for motion blur:

Motion blur in a ray tracer

I implemented the first change in my ray tracer for my next mini-book. I had forgotten how easy motion blur is to add to a ray tracer. ...

psgraphics.blogspot.com

Ray tracing for motion blur:

https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/hgifford/projects/msaa.pdf

Ray tracing for architectural visualization below. Note: this wasn't on a iGPU but shows that ray tracing isn't just for games:

Gaming is just one application. I'm not going to entertain ideas that movie studios will use iGPUs to make movies: they have servers for that. But there are plenty of uses for a typical computer.

 

[dullard]

Perhaps read the post I was quoting when I wrote that. It's called context. Igor was specifically talking about getting developers to do special support of iGPU RT units "making them attractive to the average gamer".

And the original context wasn't even about gaming:

I7 1280p and I5 1240P cinebench scores have supposedly leaked on GB5.3

followed by:

Things are looking very good. AMD doesn't have anything to counter that level of performance

 

[Hitman928]

Using ray tracing for auto focus:

Ray tracing for motion blur:

Motion blur in a ray tracer

I implemented the first change in my ray tracer for my next mini-book. I had forgotten how easy motion blur is to add to a ray tracer. ...

psgraphics.blogspot.com

Ray tracing for motion blur:

https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/hgifford/projects/msaa.pdf

This isn't what you were originally talking about and the motion blur/auto focus parts aren't relying on the RT parts at all. This is just showing that you can add things like motion blur and auto-focus to a scene that has RT applied but the techniques themselves for these functions are accomplished outisde of the RT units. If you want to add auto-focus or motion blur to a video feed or even 3d render, you aren't using the RT units to accomplish this.

Ray tracing for architectural visualization below. Note: this wasn't on a iGPU but shows that ray tracing isn't just for games:

Gaming is just one application. I'm not going to entertain ideas that movie studios will use iGPUs to make movies: they have servers for that. But there are plenty of uses for a typical computer.

This would fall under the 3d rendering category which I already commented on. It seems you're trying to apply this to your couch in your living room example, but unless you are going to re-create your own living room in 3d assets and place lighting sources inside the scene and get a 3d render of the couch you want and then render everything inside a rendering engine with RT enabled, it doesn't apply.

 

[Heartbreaker]

And the original context wasn't even about gaming:

followed by:

Are you being purposefully obtuse/disingenuous? RT gaming performance on iGPU was clearly what Igor was talking about in the post I replied to.

 

[Mopetar]

LOL nobody is going to use RT on an iGPU, not even with FSR.

Maybe not once they find out how badly it tanks the frame rate, but I wouldn't be surprised if a few people get sold on buzzwords and shiny.

 

[dullard]

Are you being purposefully obtuse/disingenuous? RT gaming performance on iGPU was clearly what Igor was talking about in the post I replied to.

I'm just pointing out obviously false things that you stated. If that is obtuse, then yes I am obtuse. My purpose here on the forums is for one agenda: to keep things honest. I have no horse in this race. Intel absolutely is NOT developing and including ray tracing because of "cutting and pasting common blocks". Ray tracing has uses outside of gaming too and it is not unusable in those situations.

 

[dullard]

It seems you're trying to apply this to your couch in your living room example, but unless you are going to re-create your own living room in 3d assets and place lighting sources inside the scene and get a 3d render of the couch you want and then render everything inside a rendering engine with RT enabled, it doesn't apply.

Then please tell Intel to stop patenting ray tracing for augmented reality.

 

[Hitman928]

Then please tell Intel to stop patenting ray tracing for augmented reality.

That's a pretty hefty goal post move there.

 

[dullard]

That's a pretty hefty goal post move there.

Ray tracing in augmented reality is a big goal post move from putting a couch in your living room virtually?

It isn't like this is a big stretch. Companies are already going that way.

How Augmented Reality Is Giving Furniture A Boost In Sales

Thanks to new technologies like augmented reality, 3D rendering and computer vision, the furniture industry is finally having its online moment. To learn exactly how this technology is boosting online furniture sales, I sat down with Williams-Sonoma, Inc. and Modsy.

www.forbes.com

Augmented Reality electrifies sales strategies in Furniture Industry

In recent years, physical stores have faced the silent assault of digitization. Consumers are more preferring the ability to buy an item…

medium.com

https://blog.cylindo.com/augmented-reality-furniture-retail-advantages

 

[Heartbreaker]

I'm just pointing out obviously false things that you stated. If that is obtuse, then yes I am obtuse. My purpose here on the forums is for one agenda: to keep things honest. I have no horse in this race. Intel absolutely is NOT developing and including ray tracing because of "cutting and pasting common blocks". Ray tracing has uses outside of gaming too and it is not unusable in those situations.

You are doing the total opposite of that. Being completely disingenuous, by purposefully taking my post out of context to misrepresent it.

First this was about gaming on AMD iGPU, where igor stated RT would give AMD an advantage.

In your first jump to "correct" me you took my post out of the gaming context, and spent a couple of post pretending that the gaming context wasn't there when it obvious was.

Now you move goal post to "correct" me again taking it out of the AMD Context. Where I was indicating that AMD iGPU will have RT mainly because RDNA2 as designed has RT HW, and it would make more work to remove. You now build a strawman around Intel, when I said nothing about Intel.

Maybe you are so bent on "correcting" people that you have to manufacture some arguments to shoot down.

Because so far, all you have done is misrepresent my posts.

 

[Hitman928]

Ray tracing in augmented reality is a big goal post move from putting a couch in your living room virtually?

It isn't like this is a big stretch. Companies are already going that way.

How Augmented Reality Is Giving Furniture A Boost In Sales

Thanks to new technologies like augmented reality, 3D rendering and computer vision, the furniture industry is finally having its online moment. To learn exactly how this technology is boosting online furniture sales, I sat down with Williams-Sonoma, Inc. and Modsy.

www.forbes.com

Augmented Reality electrifies sales strategies in Furniture Industry

In recent years, physical stores have faced the silent assault of digitization. Consumers are more preferring the ability to buy an item…

medium.com

https://blog.cylindo.com/augmented-reality-furniture-retail-advantages

Again, they are using superpositioning on hardware that has not a trace of RT hardware. It's not needed for this. To get full RT support into this type of app would be a big step in terms of developmental effort for little reward. Is it possible to get there? Sure, lots of things are possible. But in context of the discussion, yes it's a big stretch. That's not even what I called a goal post shift either, it was you ambiguously pointing to some Intel patent.

 

[TheELF]

Again, they are using superpositioning on hardware that has not a trace of RT hardware. It's not needed for this. To get full RT support into this type of app would be a big step in terms of developmental effort for little reward. Is it possible to get there? Sure, lots of things are possible. But in context of the discussion, yes it's a big stretch. That's not even what I called a goal post shift either, it was you ambiguously pointing to some Intel patent.

Intel included AI into the iGPU since 11th gen, that's not there to provide dlss when gaming on the igpu it's there to accelerate certain compute heavy apps, if intel includes RT on the igpu it will be for similar reasons, to provide a performance boost to certain heavy compute and not for gaming.

Intelligent PCs with Integrated AI

11th Gen Intel® Core™ processor-based intelligent PCs with integrated AI enhance creative capabilities.

www.intel.com

 

[IntelUser2000]

The "AI" engine on Tigerlake is practically nonexistent. The marketing is really stretching its definition on what AI is. Go down below to see what enables it. One of them, which is GNA is basically tiny hardware enabled since the Pentium Silver N4xxx series to allow things like Cortana to wake your system when your system is asleep.

On the topic of RT. It's better to have support than not. They managed to have it on an iGPU with what they feel is acceptable die space. Oh well. Some will justify it's usage, others will scoff at it, but it's there.